Tidal Serenade
by Badr
Summary: Jack Sparrow, infamous master of seduction, is captured by a Siren's song. Can the Pearl's crew, particularly Anamaria, save him? Warning: this story may be forsaken and tossed out.
1. Music On the Waters

Summary: Jack Sparrow, infamous master of seduction, is captured by a Siren's song. Can the Pearl's crew, particularly Anamaria, save him?

Author's note: Alright, I've been wanting to write a Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic for about a year now, and I've tried five times and failed each time. My biggest concerns with this story are that (1) Jack and Anamaria are horridly out of character and (2) I'll run out of ideas or interest and the story will die. So this is just a warning: Don't expect the world of this fanfic, because it has some serious issues. But! I still appreciate reviews a lot, so what'd you say? Please?

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**Tidal Serenade  
****Chapter One: Music On the Waters**

For once, Jack Sparrow, the most notorious pirate captain in the Caribbean and the constant annoyance of English naval officers and pretty women everywhere, was not causing widespread mayhem, plundering any merchants, seducing helpless ladies, or planning wildly daft schemes. Instead, he was leaning against the rail of his beloved _Black Pearl_, listening to his crew celebrate nothing in particular behind him and enjoying the calm, steady twilight.

The sun, sinking into the water to the West, had not yet resigned itself to surrender the heavens; its last remnants traced a cool, pale gold line across the horizon, which was reflected and refracted within the waves. To the East, darkness unfurled like high tide stretching across the sands of some distant, unknown shore. A crescent moon, as coldly pallid as the inside of a shell, observed time and space spin around, before, through it; the stars, solitary drops of silvered spindrift, escorted it through the sky.

No bloody Navy ships prowled the sea this evening, he noted with satisfaction. Three nights before, they had spotted two brigs, wrinkled shadows on the horizon, like a pair of shark fins jutting up from the waves. The pirates had turned and fled, the _Pearl_ terrible and beautiful in flight, flinging foam and spray aside as she soared across the water. His lady, Jack knew, had easily outraced the Navy's ships, and then he had put them further off the trail by backtracking. Yet even his apparently limitless self-assurance could not completely abate the concern that, somehow, they would find her and engage her. Fierce though the _Pearl _was, he hated to subject her to potential injury if he could avoid it.

He inhaled deeply, taking in the night, brine and sea salt on the breeze, the warm wet scent of wood. A sense of contentment surged through him, and he wholeheartedly embraced the peacefulness of the moment, so rare aboard the _Pearl_.

"Where shall we voyage next?" he murmured to the ship. Nothing but the sound of water and his crew's raucous laughter replied. With a shimmer of gold and ivory in his sudden smile, he turned on his heel and inspected the decks, searching. Finally, he spotted his quarry: a cascade of long dark hair falling away to reveal a crescent of creamy brown skin, a piercing dark eye observing the crew, and a jaw set so severely with rigid disapproval that, he imagined, it could equal a dagger for sharpness.

He sidled carefully over to her side and whispered, "Ye'll want to be careful with that look, love, or ye might inadvertently set one o' the crewmembers aflame."

Anamaria started, and then rounded on him angrily. She hated surprises. "If we didn't have to stop to bother with this foolishness," she began, "we—"

"Let 'em have their fun, Ana," Jack interrupted. "They'd mutiny if we drove them constantly."

She clenched her jaw, knowing that he was correct. Then the flint in her eyes melted slightly and she allowed her mouth to relax. "They wouldn't mutiny against ye, Jack," she murmured. "They respect ye too much for that. And ye know it," she added.

Jack quirked an eyebrow. "Mayhap," he said vaguely. The pair stood in silence for a moment, watching the crew enjoy themselves. Then Jack asked, "D'ye have a minute? I want your opinion on something." Anamaria glanced sidelong at him, wondering what he had up his sleeve. "Don't worry, lass," he assured her, grinning, "I promise it doesn't involve any loss of clothin' or any such thing—unless that's what ye want, in which case I am perfectly willin' to oblige a fair lady's wishes." He raised his brows suggestively, bowing with mock cordiality. And then he swiftly had to duck a hard smack.

Anamaria sniffed. "Gettin' quicker, I see."

"Yes'm," he admitted humbly. Then, loftily, he continued, "It seems to be one of those skills a man o' me unappreciated wit and sincerity needs to survive this cruel world."

In spite of herself, Anamaria chuckled. "Sometimes I swear ye'd been raised by nobility, talkin' as finely as ye do."

Jack's eyes darkened and, for a moment, his playful manner ebbed. Then it returned, like a wave crashing back onto shore. "Are ye comin' to my cabin, then, love?" he insisted. "Or do I have to truss ye up and drag ye there meself?"

She responded by starting toward the cabin. Jack paused, assuring himself that all was well aboard the ship, and then followed. One of the crewmembers, noticing the captain and first mate enter Jack's cabin together, nudged his friends and gestured toward the pair. Wry, knowing smiles flitted across the crewmen's faces before they continued on in their pursuit of merriment.

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Anamaria halted unexpectedly in the doorway of Jack's cabin, drawing a surprised sound from him as he abruptly had to change tack to avoid a collision. She stared at the room, which was littered with bits of stray parchment, on which were scrawled half-finished sentences, peculiar drawings, cryptic maps, and stories with no beginnings. A large stack of leather-bound, ancient-looking books sat next to a sudden hole among the tumult of paper; apparently Jack had been sitting on the floor of his quarters, surrounded by the mess. There was no real organization or logic or pattern being employed, she noticed, just a potpourri of ideas and queries and answers. 

She turned questioning eyes on him, but he simply took her arm and ushered her inside, closing the door behind him. Anamaria tried her best to ignore the sudden desire to rub her arm where he had touched her. He turned and, taking overly exaggerated steps and wind milling his arms crazily to maintain his balance, carefully navigated the paper flotsam and jetsam. Gracefully, he positioned himself in the empty space and gestured to her to take a seat as well. Almost afraid to venture out into the sea of parchment, she settled where she was, her back against the door.

She gazed at her captain, who was skimming over the various fragments around him rather desperately. "Jack?" she interrupted gently. The pirate glanced up distractedly, his dark eyes vague with echoes of words and dreams. He blinked once, twice, and then his eyes cleared and filled with her instead. He smiled abruptly, charmingly, disarmingly. Anamaria's breath hitched in her throat. That smile, swift as the incoming tide, was so easily offered and yet it always managed to surprise her.

"Yes, love?"

"What the bloody hell are ye up to?" she asked tactlessly.

His smile ebbed as rapidly as a receding wave. "In all honesty," said Jack, gazing contemplatively at the ceiling and twirling one braid of his goatee with an index finger, "I haven't the slightest." Anamaria frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. "What I mean is, I know perfectly well what I'm tryin' to do, I just haven't achieved it yet, savvy?"

She shook her head, more to clear her head of his nonsensical Jack-logic than to disagree.

Jack flashed a grin in her direction and clarified, "I dunno about you, lass, but I'm ready for another adventure. I just need to find it, is all."

Anamaria snorted, shaking her head, and told him, "Ye're daft as they come, Jack Sparrow."

"Aye," he agreed distantly, studying a piece of parchment. "Ah!" he exclaimed, having apparently found what he was looking for. He gazed at her, kohl-lined eyes full of tide and shadow and mystery, and she wondered what he was thinking. Then he said, handing her a roughly drawn map, "What'd ye reckon our chances are o' findin' Atlantis?"

Anamaria stared at the piece of paper and its crude depiction of the lost city. "Jack," she said, "ye're even dafter than I imagined."

There was a momentary silence. Then Jack laughed and took the map back, and the temporary tension in the room dispelled. "Aye, well," he said. "'Twas naught but a wish." A glint in the depths of his eyes, however, revealed that she had not heard the last of this wish. Before she could respond with a warning or a comment, the pirate captain changed the subject. "How's the book comin'?"

Anamaria allowed herself a tiny smile. "It's decent enough," she replied. He had lent her a book about a month ago, when he had finished teaching her to read and write. She was by no means a quick reader, but she was managing, and she had to admit the book was quite interesting.

"Good," said Jack. The conversation turned to other things and Jack's proposition was, for the time being, tucked away.

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That night, Jack could not sleep. He stood and paced silently around his room, now cleared of all paper. Anamaria had reacted as he had thought she would, but he was convinced he could pique her interest. When she finished the book he had given her, he could lend her one about the lost city. 

Suddenly seized by a desire for fresh air, Jack slipped on his shirt and boots and wandered outside. Carefully avoiding detection—tonight he wanted to be left alone—he crept across the ship until he came to a coil of rope at the base of the bowsprit. He curled up and, lulled by the _Pearl_'s rocking, waited for sleep to come. As he walked the indistinct line between reality and dreams, never quite fully in one or the other, he gradually became aware of something beneath the steady rhythm of the tide. Muzzily, he tried to concentrate on the sound, to separate it from the noise of the ocean. And yet, the more he struggled to divide the sounds, the more he became aware that the two were entwined.

Jack stopped attempting to hear the unknown sound as a distinct entity and simply listened to the tide instead. It seemed normal at first, removed from his conscious by distance and the regular rules of reality. Then, abruptly, the sound amplified, clarified, until it surged through his mind and sang in his blood, and the unfamiliar noises beneath it became decipherable. It was a song, composed of tidal notes, the cries of seabirds, the hiss of water, the haunting melody plucked from whale-songs; yet it was more than that. It was a haunting serenade of summons and loss, cresting and ebbing with the waves, a feral lament that plummeted and swelled at unexpected times, a harmony so excruciatingly exquisite that it brought tears to Jack's eyes.

The song stopped as soon as he recognized it as such, leaving only an echo, a mere sigh of the original, playing up and down the edges of his mind. To this faint murmur of tidal song, Jack Sparrow fell deeply asleep.

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And so there you have it. As I said, reviews are appreciated. I'll try and continue if you happen to like it. 


	2. When It's In the Veins

Author's note: Thank you to all reviewers. I very much appreciate your kindness and encouragement. I still say that Jack and Ana are horridly out of character, but I half hope it might work itself out as I continue and grow more familiar with the characters.

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**Tidal Serenade  
Chapter Two: When It's In the Veins**

The next morning dawned cool and pale, the dark waters gilded with the light of the rising sun. Jack was up and prowling the _Pearl _restlessly before the majority of his crew had woken. His gait, always staggering and swinging and never quite balanced, seemed even crazier than normal. Those of the crew who were awake watched surreptitiously as he reeled and swayed across the decks like a piece of driftwood drawn along some oceanic current. Jack ignored them all, one moment pacing across the decks, the next minute stalking around belowdecks, and the following instant climbing the rigging.

He told no one about the tidal song of the previous night, guarding it possessively, almost to the point of obsession. It ebbed and flowed just beneath his consciousness, quietly surging into his thoughts at unexpected moments. He tried in vain to remember it exactly, driving himself to the brink of madness attempting to play it in his mind. But, as elusive and uncompromising as the sea itself, the song remained slightly beyond his grasp. And so he paced, always moving, to distract himself.

Finally, the captain settled into the crow's nest, shooing the watchman from the post to give himself some privacy. He hummed involuntarily as he stood, watching the horizon, the notes of his rendition of the song off-key, jarring, fighting each other, somehow flat and unmelodious. At the edge of his vision, he spotted the _Pearl_'s destination: the port of Puerto Bello in the Spanish-held territory of New Granada. The trip had been his idea; the town was celebrating some saint's day or another by hosting a _carnaval._ The marketplace had more than quadrupled its size, and the town was swarming with troupes of entertainers. His crew—excepting Anamaria, of course, who saw the entire diversion as completely ridiculous—was more than happy about the chance to enjoy themselves. Jack was personally hoping for a chance to discover more about his Atlantis quest. And, in the midst of all the revelries, he suspected that the soldiers of the port's heavily fortified garrison would be preoccupied; hopefully, they would be less apt to try to arrest or shoot at him, which soldiers across the Caribbean had an unfortunate tendency to do whenever he crossed paths with them.

A shout went up from another crewman; he had sighted Puerto Bello as well. Jack allowed himself a faint smile and, singing wordlessly, clambered down to the decks once more.

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Several hours later, Jack wound his way through the enormous labyrinthine marketplace, filled with rich colors and richer goods, demanding vendors, the scents of spices and smoke and sweat, and many different languages and dialects. Jack absorbed all the sights, searching for any stall or cart that seemed promising or interesting. Several young Spanish women watched him sweep past from beneath demurely lowered eyelashes; he winked and grinned slyly at as many as he noticed, for if nothing else he liked to consider himself a connoisseur of women.

He slowed as he neared a small plaza between the rows of shops and stalls, where the road split and diverged off in five different rambling directions. A modest crowd had gathered in the center of the square, and he saw as he drew closer that they were watching a small band playing a traditional Spanish flamenco song. A dancer, clad in a crimson dress, accompanied the band. Her movements were graceful, sharp, and precise, as emphatic as an exclamation point. Jack watched her, interested, until the music ended, and then he gathered himself to continue on.

As he began to turn down another street, however, a clear sound yanked him back and left him reeling, as though he were a sea-critter suddenly spat onto shore by a furious wave. He gasped as the tidal song rang in his ears, and whirled back around to seek its source. The world titled very slightly underneath him, a twitch that had nothing to do with his usual imbalance on land. The scenery around him blurred at the edges, and the colors of his surroundings seemed unreal, leached of their intensity. The melody raged through his body; in its fully embodied presence, he became a creature of the ocean: his bones transformed to coral, his blood rushed through his body as spume and spindrift, his muscles morphed into tightly braided pieces of kelp.

Jack staggered, once, toward the front of the crowd. Then, regaining his balance with some difficulty, he noticed something very curious. As affected as he was by the song, whose notes were interspersed with the sounds of the sea, whose lines were interrupted and covered as waves surged between and over them, none of the other people gathered in the plaza seemed to perceive the presence of the ocean. They simply, it appeared, heard a song and nothing more. Certainly none of them were having the reaction that he was. None of them seemed to feel the inexplicable urge to fling themselves to the incoming tide and allow the waves to absorb them.

Finally, the pirate reached the front of the group of people. There! The singer of the song stood not ten paces from him. She was a woman he had not noticed before. Apparently, she had slipped into the plaza while the flamenco band took a short break. She was clad plainly, wearing a dress the deep cobalt of the ocean on a moonless night. She swayed faintly as she sang, as though buffeted by some invisible current, and her face was hidden behind a curtain of long dark hair. Then her hair parted and Jack glimpsed pale skin, an elegant jaw, a straight nose, rosily plump lips; her eyes, the translucent green of the sea in a certain light, met Jack's directly.

The song seethed to its crescendo and fell away abruptly into silence. Her eyes recloaked themselves beyond her hair and, as the audience applauded politely, she slid away into an unseen alley. Jack stood where he was, dazed. The universe quietly readjusted itself, the scene's colors righted themselves, and the edges of his vision gained clarity once more. The revelers streamed by around him and the flamenco band began to play again, distantly.

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So what'd you reckon? Still vaguely interesting? Please review.


	3. A Wave In the Heart

Author's note: Sorry for the long silence. I've been busy with work and other activities. Once again, a hearty toast goes to all my lovely reviewers, who are absolutely stunning. And I'm not just saying that, either, trust me. Anyway, on with the nonsense...!

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**Tidal Serenade  
Chapter Three: A Wave In the Heart**

Jack found himself at the beach without any clear notion of how he had gotten there. He seemed vaguely to remember, in between the incessant, insistent snatches of tidal song rushing through his mind, his feet carrying him along winding side streets—or no, perhaps he had stolen a horse…or…

No, that couldn't have been it. He shook his head like a drenched animal attempting to shake the water from its fur, but to no avail. He could hardly see straight, let alone concentrate; all that he could hear, all that mattered, was the ocean. For a moment he entertained the pleasant thought that he was just three sheets to the wind, but then he realized that it was more along the lines of eight or nine sheets and that he hadn't tasted a sip of rum since the morning before.

That realization stopped him in his tracks, stunned his thoughts into momentary clarity. The last time he had gone this long sober was so long ago he couldn't properly remember when it had been.

"Oh, God," he moaned, listing down the beach in a crazy zigzag. "There's something wrong with me, an' I don't think it's anythin' to do with bein' loaded to the gunwhales…"

An incoming wave splashed across his boots. He started backward with a small noise of indignation and then realized, frowning in consternation, that he had for some inexplicable reason been walking right into the water. "What'd ye want with me?" he demanded of the sea, gesticulating wildly. "I don't owe ye for anythin'!" Breathing raggedly, he whirled around so that his back was to the water. Almost inaudibly, as though not quite consciously realizing the meaning of the words he spoke, he muttered, "I shan't strike me colors yet…"

The sea made no reply. Startled, he saw that he was again facing the water. No, more than that: he was pacing toward it. Why? he thought muzzily. And then the ocean in his head swept through his mind again, echoing the true waves before him, erasing all other thoughts.

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To his immense shock, Jack awoke aboard the _Black Pearl_. He scoured his memory for clues; what had happened? Remembrance came in shattered, confusing fragments: the exotic marketplace; the singer with the dress of midnight waves; a crowd of people, shoving him about like an uprooted piece of seaweed; the beach and then the ocean, everywhere; sand in his mouth, his eyes, his ears, his nose, down his shirt; voices yelling… 

The door to his cabin swung open. There was a soft whoosh of disturbed air and there, suddenly, standing in a sliver of pale sunlight, stood Anamaria.

"Cap'n," she stated crisply, by way of greeting. "Glad to see ye awake."

Jack mumbled something he didn't even understand himself.

"Ye gave us a bit o' a nasty shock last night," she continued. Her voice was calm, but in her eyes he could detect the faintest hint of concern. "We found ye in the water. Ye owe Gibbs a thanks for spottin' ye and to Mr. Cotton for pullin' ye from the waves before ye drowned."

"Drowned?" he managed in the relative quiet after one wave retreated in his head and before the next raced to replace the first. He remembered water enclosing him, sand swirling everywhere…

"Yes, ye daft fool! What did ye think ye were doin', goin' for a swim when ye were drunk?" she demanded, her tone losing a great deal of its former composure.

"Dunno," he muttered, only half-hearing the question. "I can't think."

"Obviously," his first mate answered tartly. "Ye probably have a ragin' hangover, I imagine. Well, I'll leave ye to it," she said. "We'll talk when ye've recovered a bit."

"No," Jack protested. She halted, gazing at him sharply. He heaved himself to his feet and looked around the cabin. There! A bucket full of cold water had thoughtfully been placed on the floor near the entrance to his cabin. He staggered over to it and plunged his entire head into the water.

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Anamaria watched, stunned, as her captain abruptly submerged his head in the bucket of wash water. The loud splash that accompanied the inexplicable movement startled her into action. She rushed to his side, seized several floating tendrils of dark hair, and yanked. Jack's head followed obligingly. 

Spouting curses, Anamaria dragged him to his bed and flung him down. Jack rubbed his abused head and stared up at her gravely. Something about the expression in his eyes, a vague unsettling muzzy quality, caused her to swallow her imprecations. She studied him carefully, her frown deepening with each passing second.

Jack's normal capricious, self-assured, and utterly maddening easiness had vanished and been replaced by an uncharacteristic tautness, which was displayed in a rigidity of the limbs, a tension about the mouth, a tightness in the gait. His expressive hands lay still at his sides; his dark eyes, usually lit by some unquenchable fiery mischief, had lost their luster.

"Jack," she said, frightened. "Are you ill?"

"I can't—" The pirate captain sighed and rested his head on his hands, rubbing his eyes. Then he glanced back up, and the quiet torment beneath the odd unfocused quality made Anamaria ache. Distractedly, something flickering behind his eyes, he repeated, "I can't think. Am I losing my mind, Ana? Is this insanity?"

"Lie down, Jack, and stay there," Anamaria commanded. "I'm going to fetch Cor." With that, she sprinted off to find the ship's cook, who also served as the _Pearl_'s doctor.

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And so there you have it. Questions, comments, or concerns? Reviews are always welcome, as I've mentioned before. 


	4. They Say the Sea Is Cold

Author's note: I apologize for my embarrassing lack of posts, and beg my readers' pardons. Hopefully this chapter, and coming chapters, will be worth the wait.

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Tidal Serenade  
Chapter Four: They Say the Sea Is Cold

Jack, obediently sprawled on his bed as Ana had asked, closed his eyes and attempted to focus.

_My name is Jack Sparrow. No,_ Captain _Jack Sparrow. My ship is the_ Black Pearl. _I captained her for two…three—no, two—_

The tidal song surged through his head, erasing memories and thoughts and dreams as it ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed, ebbed and flowed, ebbed and…

Jack opened one eye and peered around for a good, therapeutic bottle of rum. On the opposite end of his desk was a smallish, rounded green bottle that looked hopeful. He lurched to his feet and, staggering across his cabin in a crazy zigzag, seized the bottle. He had just lifted it to his lips when movement at the edge of his vision snared his attention.

He glanced over; the tide suddenly filled his consciousness. The bottle of rum dropped and shattered, unnoticed, by his boots. Between the rushing waves blurring his sight, he could see that the universe had tilted gently beneath him, as it had in the marketplace, and that the colors around him had once again paled to curious dullness. A current of song drew him to a window; not entirely understanding why, he gazed out at the water. In a moment he noticed a dark spot hovering at the surface of the glistening cerulean ocean. Then the shadow shifted and the darkness parted to reveal a crescent of pale skin.

As Jack recognized the water-figure as the singer from Puerto Bello and the source of the song that transformed him into coral and spindrift and kelp, his knees grew weak. He felt an overwhelming compulsion to throw himself to the sea, a craving as inescapable as the tides.

Numbed to all but the shadow gazing back at him from the water, Jack did not hear the glass shatter. He could not feel the drip of blood down his palm where a stray shard of glass had sliced into him. The chill of ocean water briefly shocked him into semi-consciousness, but then the continuation of the tidal serenade pulled him even more forcefully to its source. As he reached the mysterious singer among the waves, her translucent green gaze smiled on him. He managed to return the gesture, and then cold water pressed against him from all sides as he followed her down and down into the darkening blue depths.

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"Hurry up, ye bloody scalawag!" Anamaria barked at Cor. The poor abused man muttered something vaguely apologetic and quickened his stride to a jog. Anamaria trotted along behind him, suddenly impatient for no apparent reason. A feeling of foreboding spread through her chest, and she cursed herself for leaving Jack alone. Something was terribly…_incorrect_ about the captain—he had truly gone mad, with fever, with drink—his ship was sinking and he had cried out to her for help, but she had abandoned him. Now she was frightened, blindly and with no other cause than pure instinct. 

Finally, the pair reached the captain's quarters. Anamaria elbowed her way in front of Cor, flinging open the door as she yelled gruffly, "Cap'n! The doc—"

Her words dried and shriveled away in her throat like some small, stranded sea creature forsaken by the departing tide. Jack was nowhere to be seen; instead, inexplicably, the wreckage of a bottle of rum lay on the floor beside his desk. More alarming than that, however, was the window. It gaped open like some translucent shark's mouth, lined with jagged shards of glass-teeth. The hole was large enough to accommodate a man of Jack's size.

Anamaria rushed to the shattered remains of the window and peered out at the sea. Distantly, in the troughs of the waves, Jack treaded water with something—someone—else. Several soft, incongruous notes reached Anamaria's ears, and then a wave rose, shielding her captain from sight. When the water subsided once more, the two figures were gone.

Anamaria turned to find Cor, dazed, gaping at her from the frame of the door. She stared back, at a complete loss for words.


	5. Author's Note

**Author's note: I'm sorry this is not a proper update, but I've been missing for so long I felt I should let any readers that care know that I'm still alive. And so is the story! It will remain alive until it dies, obviously, at which point I will delete it. So as long as the story hasn't been deleted, don't lose hope.**

**Right now, I have half of the next chapter finished…Just bear with me while I finish it. Thanks everyone.**


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